


Corporeal Vocabulary

by bluebackstabber



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Oh also, Swear Words, Violence, You Have Been Warned, actually it's a lot of words, implied major character death, this entire prompt is about words, this fic contains ~WORDS~
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 13:40:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebackstabber/pseuds/bluebackstabber
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That’s the thing about the words; if they don’t know you enough they’ll call you anything, and you might look like a vandalized wall, but out of all those words, only you would know if they any of them were true or not. The rest become background noise, like a bruise you don’t remember.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Corporeal Vocabulary

**Author's Note:**

> This is the second fill for a beautiful prompt from the kink meme: http://snkkink.dreamwidth.org/2124.html?thread=2371148#cmt2371148
> 
> It should be noted that the first fill really inspired me to write this. I focused on Erwin and Levi's relationship because I love their relationship SO MUCH. I don't think I could do the prompt justice since the first fill was so amazing, but I did my best. Also, sorry OP, this is probably not what you wanted.

His fingers are covered with vulgar swear words and slurs, and they spiral up to his forearms; it’s almost illegible, but a concentrated look can decipher most of them. Levi has only ever minded them a few times; they had begun forming long before he knew how to read them. He learned what they meant in the moments people actually said them. _Brat_ , they called him, and he could feel the crooks and curves of the letters curl up against his skin like a snake, laying its head to rest there, a permanent home.

 

His hands are almost blackened by the time he’s thirteen, and the letters that form words keep spreading rapidly. The rest of his body is littered with smaller terms that people have said in passing, like _quick_ , _crazy_ , _slippery_. _Short_ runs up the side of his torso, bolder than almost all the others, variations of the word branching out across his body like a gnarled, twisted tree. More than a few times have people laughed at it in the showers at headquarters, which earned them swift kicks that made the _son of a bitch_ and _piece of shit_ a little darker on his forearms.

 

Certain words he just knows who’s said them, the ones that go up his right calf, the ones that say _the would-be hope of humanity_ and _important_. He’d felt them in the middle of the night when he was still living in Lower Sina, curled up somewhere, avoiding his enemies at every turn. He had wondered what it meant all day, nearly getting killed by the distraction, but he let himself be dazed. The words hadn’t affected him this much till then, and he couldn’t help but run his fingers against it, his heart hammering against his chest, waiting to see if it would disappear. Some words could be replaced if the person who said them had changed his or her mind and said something else in its place, but the words stayed almost resolutely.

 

He couldn’t help but check every now and then, to see if it was gone, taken up by some other, crueler words, but no matter how many times he did, the words stared back at him as if to challenge him.

 

A month after Erwin finds him and makes him join the Recon Corps, the words do change.

 

 _Humanity’s strongest_.

 

 _Important_ lingers, getting bolder each passing day.

 

After he becomes Lance Corporal, _humanity’s strongest_ covers his entire right leg, with _humanity’s_ stretching up from back of his calf and twisting partially to the front of his knee, and _strongest_ covering the front of his thighs and reaching his hip.

 

Some words on his back he can’t quite see or understand; he marches up to the Commander’s office and demands that Erwin read them out loud. He obliges with an infuriating smile, and he makes Levi sit on the desk, half-naked and facing away from the chair where he sits down accordingly. Erwin’s warm fingers trace his spine, and he shivers; he reads the larger words first, _clean freak_ , _intimidating_ , _scarred_ , _alone_ , and then the smaller, _chosen_ , _amazing_ , _insolent_ , and even _kind_. It goes on until Erwin stops at a word that he can’t seem to say, or doesn’t want to say, to which Levi makes an attempt to twist behind himself to look. Erwin stills him with a sudden and warm kiss at the center of his back, his large hand coming up to cover his abdomen protectively. Levi tries to say something like _what are you doing_ , but those lips trail up the length of his spine, leaving goose bumps in its wake, so his voice betrays him instead, letting out a sharp moan before he could stop himself.

 

(The unspoken word is _fuckable_ ; Erwin doesn’t know who said it and never will, but he makes sure no one can act on what the word suggests.)

 

There is one word that sears onto the back of his neck when Erwin murmurs into his skin, but he always says it like a hum and unintelligibly. When Levi asks about it, Erwin brushes his thumb at the spot and tells him he could look at it if he had two mirrors. He considers it, but he never, ever looks, even if the curiosity is nearly enough to drive him a little mad; he decides that he has to trust him even in this. He opens that neat box he hasn’t touched since he first got it, which contains a clean cravat that Erwin had given him when Levi had only just joined them. When he had first received the gift, he’d looked at it with disgust and demanded to know why he would ever want to wear such a hideous thing. But he only said in reply, “You might need it someday.”

 

Levi wonders if he planned it all; an age old instinct inside him kicks in, telling him that this is all some elaborate joke and no one would truly embrace him, and the thought made him want to look at his neck. But he quickly dismisses all those doubts and misgivings, and he put on the cravat ever since.

 

A few of his comrades have seen the word when Levi, unable to stand the sweat getting on it, took it off. _Mine_ , it says, in gorgeous curlicues, but none of them have to ask _whose_ because they already knew.

 

He sees many soldiers go to their death under his command. If he can, he wants to hear their last words, wants to tell them that their lives aren’t the waste that titans would have them believe; that, despite all the things he has ever said to them, he will take their hands into his own, which are covered in the worst a language could offer. He wants them to know that they were _brave_ and _important_ and _devoted_ ; when they share their own words, he thanks them, wearing them on his body proudly, and it really does give him the strength to go on. He’d had a problem with dirtiness since his mangled childhood, but in these moments, he is utterly unafraid of it, and he can’t care whether the blood stains his hands or clothes; and that, Levi thinks, is something powerful.

 

Years pass; _hope_ now grows on his left ankle, stronger and stronger.

 

\-----

 

Little is known about Erwin’s words.

 

He doesn’t have a lot of words where it would be visible to the public; he has almost none on his hands or arms or even his feet, really. Erwin doesn’t know why the words don’t show up there. Instead, the words concentrate on his inner thighs, lower back, lower abdomen, a few scattered down to his knees. They’re not extremely darkened or large in letters, but there is diversity, as if one person or the next would never come to an agreement about who he is. One word, _ruthless_ , keeps getting bigger though, curving right around his left hip. There’s _handsome_ , _tall_ , _beautiful_ , _nice_ , all scrawled closest to where they would be visible, around the upper arms.

 

 _Admirable_ has been there for some time, coiled around the side of his torso. He remembers how new recruits would express their interests with blushes and stammers, offering him a trinket or two. He accepts them graciously and always with a pleasant enough smile, but he declines anything beyond little confessions very politely.

 

Erwin remembers the nostalgic pain of being _lost_ as a child; are you lost, little boy? _Lost_ , _lost_ , _lost_ , they called him, and it’s etched on his back somewhere, though it’s worn, and he hasn’t been called that in a very long time. The meanings of words often muddle his thoughts so he doesn’t dwell on them; sometimes he feels the childhood tug (of being very, very _lost_ ) when faced with his own strategy, but his face stays _impassive_ , and it may be that no one has thought to freshen the word on his skin.

 

(That’s the thing about the words; if they don’t know you enough they’ll call you anything, and you might look like a vandalized wall, but out of all those words, only _you_ would know if they any of them were true or not. The rest become background noise, like a bruise you don’t remember.)

 

He realizes just how little words Levi leaves on him; he had tossed around _bastard_ on many occasions which, surprisingly, isn’t the first time he had been called that. Its letters darken against his inner thigh, which Levi kisses and bites. Some other profane words crisscross at the base of his spine; many of them are Levi’s from when they first made each other’s acquaintances. But he doesn’t add any other words like the others; they’re all predictably _Levi_ , and that feels comfortable.

 

There are some strange words that don’t seem like proper terms to describe a person; _vast_ is one of them, but perhaps it refers to his stature. _Understanding_ is linked with _vast_ , and he thinks he knows what that means.

 

After a particularly horrifying mission, Erwin resigns to his quarters, aching all over and all inside, when he feels a burning sensation on his ribs. He heads to the bathroom and takes off his shirt, looking in the mirror. _Murderer_. It glares back at him, bold and defiant. He thinks he should be used to it by now, that it shouldn’t matter whether people want to call him _murderer_ or _soldier-killer_ , or _psychopath_ —he’s devoted to the cause, to his work, to effectiveness, that’s all that—

 

Levi bursts in then. He spots Erwin half naked down the corridor, with the bathroom door open. He closes the distance between them so fast that Erwin thinks that something’s happened, but he stops in front of him, and his eyes go straight to the fresh word. His eyes narrow at it, and they seem to burn almost as hot as the feeling in his ribs. “Those fucking bastards,” he says quietly with a quiet danger. His eyes stay firmly on the offending word.

 

“Levi—” he tries to say, but he looks up at him, and his glare stops him from saying anything further. There is darkness there, the kind of look that Erwin remembers _way back when_. “I took _care_ of it,” is all he says, and for now, Erwin accepts the odd comfort because, whether he knew it consciously or not, he needed it. He wraps his arms around Levi, whose small stature reaches only to his chest; his frame his smaller still, and he wonders how he can bear the weight of the world without stumbling. He leans forward and kisses the top of his head, and they stand there for some time, remembering how alive they are. He closes his eyes, knowing how much of a burden he would be to Levi if he let on how _weak_ he sometimes felt. He braces himself mentally for the days to come. Yes, Erwin can accept it all. He _is_ all those things on his body and more. And if he isn’t yet, he will _be_ all those things and more.

 

If it means that this man, _humanity’s strongest_ , can live, he can become  _murderer_.

 

He tightens his hold on Levi just a little, and they listen to the silence together.

 

(Levi remembers these moments, before he made good on that promise. He curses him for the longest time, but Erwin doesn’t bear the words on his skin anymore.)


End file.
